William Stott, son of an Oldham mill owner, left for Paris in 1878, at the age of twenty, to train with the classical French painter Jean-Leon Gerome. Adopting a Realist style of painting, he achieved rapid success, being medalled at the Paris Salon in 1882 for his painting The Bathing Place (Munich). He quickly became a hero figure among the British and American artists in Paris and was an influential member of the international colony of artists at Grez-sur-Loing, near Paris. In 1889 he had a one-man exhibition at Durand-Ruel's gallery in Paris. On returning to England he became a follower and close friend of James McNeill Whistler, until his painting of Whistler's mistress, Maud Franklin, depicted naked as Venus born of the Sea Foam (Oldham Art Gallery), caused a rift between them. In his latter years he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, mainly highly decorative works depicting scenes from mythology. He died in 1900 at the age of forty-two while on a sea-crossing to Ireland.
This book reveals an interesting and important artist whose best work has hardly been seen in public, and has hitherto never been photographed or published in colour. His pastels of Alpine peaks and glaciers, of torrents, of the sea, of beaches and of the simple countryside round his home in the village of Ravenglass in Cumbria will be a revelation, and the reconstruction of his career here by Roger Brown is a significant contribution to the study of Symbolism and Impressionism.

Roger Brown teaches in the Continuing Education department of the University of Reading.